President Obama asked Vice President Biden to lead a task force on school safety with the goal of being able to give strong recommendations by the State of the Union address in late January. In Connecticut, Governor Dannel P. Malloy also announced the formation of a task force. The expert panel will review current policy and make the necessary changes in the areas of school safety, mental health, and gun violence prevention.

Other ideas to strengthen school safety have been suggested, but they have not yet panned out.

They include the Save our Students Act, proposed by California Senator Barbara Boxer a few days after the Newtown shooting. The bill died on the floor and is now with the Senate Armed Services Committee. If it had passed, it would have increased funding for the Secure Our Schools program from $30 to $50 million dollars. The funds would have gone to additional tip lines and surveillance equipment. It would also have secured entries to schools and authorized the National Guard to respond to incidents of violence.

The United States is not the only country that has experienced violence inside its schools. On the same day as the Sandy Hook shooting, Min Yongjun wounded 23 children with a knife at Chenpeng village primary school. In 2010, China experienced five unrelated school attacks over the course of 50 days.

Because of attacks like these, China and many other countries around the world are paying closer attention to school safety. Click through the gallery to see the strategies different countries are taking to prevent violence in schools.

Photo: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

China: Anti-violence Drills

A teacher and her students try to shut a door against an intruder during an anti-violence exercise at a primary school in Jinan, Shandong province, just four days after the knife attack that wounded 23 at a school in China.

Photo: China Daily/Reuters

Germany: Forced to Check In

A private security guard checks the identities of students at the main entrance of the Otto-Hahn high school in Berlin's Neukoelln district on December 10, 2007. After several schools in the district were branded as Berlin's worst schools, local authorities brought in private unarmed security guards to provide security in 13 of the schools.

Photo: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

France: Police Stand Guard

French CRS police stand guard as they provide security outside the Beth Menahem Jewish School in Villeurbanne, near Lyon, on March 19, 2012. In Toulouse a gunman on a motorbike shot dead at least four people, including three children, outside Ozar Hatorah Jewish School that same morning.

Photo: Emmanuel Foudrot/Reuters

Philippines: Arresting Mock Terrorists

A member of a rescue unit of the Philippine army gestures as he arrests a mock terrorist during a mass casualty incident drill in a university in Quezon City, metro Manila, on December 19, 2012. The drill aims to train and prepare different rescue units to react to situations similar to the Newtown shooting.

Photo: Romeo Ranoco/Reuters

Russia: Armed Guards

A schoolboy and his mother pass by an armed security guard as they arrive for the first lesson at No. 1 school in Beslan, Russia, on September 5, 2005. A year earlier, 32 Chechen militants held over 1,000 people hostage, including 777 children, for three days before the Russian army intervened. Three hundred and thirty-two people died in the tragedy.

Photo: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters

Colombia: Gunfire Drills

Students participate in precautionary evacuation drills, in the event they are ever caught in gun crossfire, at a school in Toribio, Cauca, on September 25, 2012. Toribio lies in the western Cauca department of Colombia, an area with a high concentration of Marxist rebels, who have long fought for control.

Photo: Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters

China: Self-Defense Can't Hurt

Paramilitary policemen demonstrate self-defense skills to students at a school in Nanjing, Jiangsu. China's police forces nationwide were ordered to step up security of kindergartens and schools after a spate of violent attacks against school children.

Photo: Stringer/Reuters

America: Backpack Armor

Since the Newtown shooting, the sales for armored backpacks designed to shield kids from bullets have increased, the Associated Press reports.

On the left, the photo of Amendment II's backpack with ballistic material shows the impact points of the bullets. On the right, Amanda Curran demonstrates how to use the Bullet Blocker backpack, a similar product the manufacturer claims can stop 99.9 percent of bullets from all handguns and costs between $250-$600.

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